Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Do images work as a H1
-
Is a h1 tag wrapped image with a optimized alt tag as effective as text wrapped in a h1 tag?
-
I agree 100% with what Theo is saying. The use of CSS to replace images has gotten to a point (from a purely aesthetic standpoint) that you cant tell the difference anymore. It is effective and considered best practice to use text when possible. It compounds your pages SEO weight and can edge out your competition if they are using images as opposed to CSS to render text in its place. Style Sheets RULE!
-
UX: if the image is missing for some reason, the Alt Text will be formatted as H1 and have to fit inside the image area. Not a pretty picture at all.
-
Really interesting that you ask this as I have just recently been researching on this exact same thing. A website where we had 4 H1 tags on homepage (not a good thing!) needed to change - to keep it to just 1. I did not want to introduce new keyword phrase and I struggled to find an existing keyword/title phrase that I could wrap the H1 with. For a sometime I was considering making the logo as H1 as the logo images ALT had the websites main keywords in it but from research and non-scientific test on a dummy site, I found that its not very affective at all.
To some extent, the effect is like an image backlink - Google does not greatly value the ALT of the image that is linking to you, as it would, had the backlink been from a text link with anchor text.
-
Most crawlers that I've used has not recognised the H1 tag wrapped in Alt text used on one of our sites. Once we have used the normal H1 tag we have seen a good increase in one of the keywords we have tried to rank for a while.
-
The functional purpose of H1 tags is to identify sections of text so CSS formatting can easily be applied such as text size, bold, font, etc. Those text modifiers don't apply to images.
I checked and enclosing an image within a H1 tag is actually valid HTML as per the W3C standards.
I doubt this idea has ever been tested to see if the alt tag was given any increased importance because it was contained in a H1 tag. I would not believe it would as the entire point is bold or enlarged text increases visibility, whereas ALT text is not visible to most readers.
This is an instance where you are making a change that does not benefit users in an effort to manipulate search rankings. I wouldn't suggest it as helpful.
-
No. Actual text is slightly more effective than an image alt text. You might want to have a look at CSS image replacement techniques?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My website have h1 tags , but still crawlers can't find them?
crawlers can't crawl my meta description and h1 tags even when they are present.
On-Page Optimization | | Green_Beauty0 -
Yoast SEO doesn't recognize images
Hi, I'm currently adding alt tags to my images but the Yoast SEO plug in in Wordpress states on all my pages “No images appear in this page, consider adding some as appropriate.“ while I do have images on my pages. What could be the problem? Best, Rik
On-Page Optimization | | bbuildingbusiness0 -
Link in H1 tag?
Hi guys, We're working through a redesign of our product page and are considering the following: http://screencast.com/t/NBSsDGA9vgS3 Currently the product name (including the brand name - Arc'teryx) in this case is included in the H1 and none of the title is linked. You can see this here: http://www.evo.com/synthetic-jackets/arcteryx-atom-lt-hoodie-womens.aspx The firm we're working with is proposing keeping the entire title in the H1 but linking the brand name to the entire brand assortment. My concern is that the brand name is a critical part of the product title and should be text (not a link). Any suggestions? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | evoNick
Will0 -
How important are image file names
Hi, How important do you think the image file names are for image search?
On-Page Optimization | | jjtech
I know it used to be the best practice a while ago but is it still important? Thanks in advance, JJ0 -
Break in H1 tag - big, small or no problem?
Hi, I've just taken on a new ski client who offers ski instructor courses. The landing page for the keyword [ski instructor courses] was created by the web agency but with no heading tags... http://www.snowrehab.com/ski-instructor-courses Subsequently they've put them in but I've noticed the H1 tag has a break in it where 'ski' is on a separate line to 'instructor courses' Is this an issue that need to be addressed? Also I can't look up the page in the Moz on-page grader - any ideas why? Many thanks! Richard
On-Page Optimization | | richardpatey0 -
H1 Tags on Volusion Product Pages
So I'm working with a client who has no heading tags on his site and I'm wondering if there is an ideal method to implementing these on the product pages specifically, as the wording I ideally want to specify is is the product title, which i can't really code with an H1. Has anyone run into this issue? If so, what was your solution? Also, how vital are these heading tags on the product pages, anyways? If the Volusion SEO expert could chime in, that would be much appreciated. Thanks everyone!
On-Page Optimization | | BrandLabs0 -
Image titles and alt tags for multiple images
I'm hoping some of you may be able to help me understand the best way to optimize my image titles and alt tags for a specific situation. I'm working on an interior design website and they have hundreds of pictures. each of their projects has about 10 pictures. Is it best for me to us the key phrase in each title and tag? or is that to repetitive? here is what I mean: A project called "urban interior design" all images are of urban interior design, just different angles and features, so my initial idea is to just have each image title like this: Title: "urban interior design dinning area" Alt: "urban interior design dinning area view" Title: "urban interior design living room" Alt:"urban interior design living room couch view" Is this the best way or will it actually hurt my ranking with too much exact keyword use? Thanks for your help!
On-Page Optimization | | TBSEO0 -
Sequence of heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) important?
Meaning heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) are a critical part of good on-page optimisation. Fair enough. It helps humans and bots make sense of a page's content. 3 questions regarding implementation of heading tags: Should heading tags appear in sequence in the HTML code. I.e. H1 first, then H2 lower down, etc.? Can the page contain more than one H1 tag? Can the page contain multiple H2, H3, H4 tags?
On-Page Optimization | | AndreVanKets1
